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Thursday, October 9, 2014

We have asked Eugene Kovalenko*, Ph.D., to be a guest author on the Rhine blog. After a series of synchronistic email exchanges, he and Sally Rhine Feather, Ph.D., Executive Director Emeritus, realized they were uncovering a fascinating, untold story about J.B. Rhine and the history of the Foundation for Research on the Nature of Man. Here, in Kovalenko's words, is his description of his first meeting with Professor J.B. Rhine:

In searching for "hard information" re the psi-war warning idea of June 1964, I became aware of the work of Professor J.B. Rhine at Duke University in Durham, N.C. Rhine was considered the "Father of Parapsychology" and was clearly the most credible researcher in this often confusing and suspect field. I wrote him a letter in October 1964, which he answered with an invitation to visit him at the university. As luck would have it, the trip to Durham was made possible by having been invited to present a scientific paper at an international conference on materials science being held at that time in Raleigh, N.C., just 25 miles away!After presenting my paper, I visited Rhine in an afternoon before catching a flight home to California later that evening. My purpose was simple. After telling him my idea I naively asked, "Am I crazy?" Rhine replied by showing me his private library and giving me from it a recent book published by Soviet scientist L.L. Vasiliev called Experiments in Mental Suggestion. With obvious enthusiasm he then declared, "Not only are you not crazy, but your idea is urgent! We have been waiting years for a man with your background. Here's the phone, call your wife and tell her you are coming to work with me in our new Foundation for Research on the Nature of Man!"Flattered, but taken aback, I responded, "I can't make such a decision at such a moment. I've barely begun a new career.""All right", he replied, "but please stay the night at our expense and then attend a meeting at our laboratory in the morning." To that I agreed.Arriving at his laboratory apprehensive, I was greatly relieved to encounter the lab personnel had become excited by a visit of two unexpected celebrities: TV star Eddie Albert and his buddy, folk song singer and actor Burl Ives. I was to learn that this kind of surprise was not unusual for Rhine and he graciously invited the visitors to attend the meeting. I was pleased to have the pressure off and content to silently watch the proceedings from a corner in the back of the room.

Editor's note: What happened next is best described in the e-mail exhange between Dr. Kovalenko and Dr. Feather. Here it is, as delineated by Kovalenko:

Introduction

Having discovered the existence of the RhineResearchCenter in summer 2013, I
subscribed to its monthly newsletter. In the December issue, an article titled The Science
Behind Your Beliefs by Executive Director
John Kruth caught my attention.On
Monday, 12/30/2013, I wrote the following email:Dear
John,Is
there anyone in your organization who would be interested in my story about
meeting J.B. Rhine in late November 1964 and the project we agreed to work on
together? Does your archival history contain any of our correspondence? If not,
would you be interested in having a copy?

Is
there any record of the unannounced and unexpected visit of actors Eddie Albert
and Burl Ives, who were there at the same time? (A week or so before that meeting
writer Pearl Buck had also been an unexpected visitor. J.B. told me back then
that this was not an unusual happening at his laboratory.)

Eugene
Kovalenko

The next day, Tuesday, December 31,
2013, I received the following letter from Sally Feather, Emeritus Executive
Director:Dear Eugene,I am taking the liberty of
responding to your inquiry below as I am the person who deals with much of the
archival matters of the RhineCenter. And in fact I
recall that I just happened to be visiting at the Duke Parapsychology Lab
during the visit from Burl Ives and Eddie Albert at the regular coffee hour
that you note in 1964. That is the kind of occurrence that stands out, as
not too common although there were often other celebrities, but especially for
me as I had always been a great fan of Burl Ives. I recall my
disappointment that he deferred a request to sing because there was a visiting
young singer whom he encouraged to sing instead. But yes I would be interested
in the account of your meeting with JB, and your project. As for finding
an account of that visit here, one would have to check through JB’s
correspondences that are preserved in the Special Collections of the Duke
University Library on the Duke Campus several miles away. From
my downloaded index of the Parapsychology Lab Records, I see that for the
year 1964 there would Boxes 264-273 alphabetically arranged- maybe
Box 269 that is Ka-Mar (8 folders) would be the place to start for your
correspondence. I will be getting over to the Library in late January and
could perhaps help with that limited search if you want to pursue that further.Thanks for your interest in
this matter.Sally FeatherLater
on Tuesday 12/31/2013 I responded:Dear
Sally,

What
a surprisingly wonderful and synchronistic response!

I was that young singer! So, you were there in the lab
audience at that time! It shocked me to be asked by JB to sing the
"Song of the Volga Boatmen." I didn't know he knew I sang, let alone
that particular song!, but it was a never-to-be-forgotten experience.

I
had come to see JB at his invitation to discuss an idea that I'd had the
previous summer, which had nothing to do with my then career as a nuclear
materials scientist. In fact, it had military implications and my question to
him was, "Am I crazy?" During that first meeting he said something
like, "Not only are you not crazy, but the issue you describe is urgent!
Clearly you have a calling. We have been waiting years for someone with your
background. Here is the phone, call your wife and tell her you are coming to
work with me." And then he gave me two books by Russian authors: L.L.
Vasiliev and Nikolai Khokhlov, both of which profoundly changed my life. When I
told him I'd only just started my scientific career and couldn't make such an
abrupt new decision, he invited me to stay overnight at his home and then
attend his laboratory the next morning. When we arrived at his lab that
following day I was relieved to see that the lab personnel were preoccupied
with Ives and Albert and that the spotlight pressure was now off me. I could
simply be an observer in the back of the room. Do you remember Burl's words
after I'd sung and JB then asked him to sing? "Are you kidding? Not after
that guy!" I'll never forget how Burl helped me pull the boats while
he bounced up and down, pretending tugging gestures as I sang…. :) Ives
and Albert then took me to lunch for another memorable experience.

Eugene KovalenkoSally
replied within minutes.Dear Eugene,I’m delighted to get your
response. You know, I almost asked if you were that young singer---but
thought that just too far out. JB was appropriately non-disclosing about
who you were or why you were there, but now I hope that the whole story can be
told. We look forward to hearing much more of it from you.Your poem is very moving and
significant for me as mountain ranges were always meaningful to JB. Even the
title of my mom’s last book Something
Hidden came from Kipling’s poem about “something hidden beyond the ranges,
go and find it” that as found among JB’s notes when he died. Well, so glad that you opened
this door----Warm regards,Sally FeatherOn New Year’s
Day at 2:46 PM, I wrote to Sally:Dear
Sally,

HAPPY
NEW YEAR!!!

I
have a hunch our correspondence will be loaded with more interesting
surprises!--and do not believe this mutual discovery is mere happenstance.

After
JB sent his November '64 telegram, he sent me two Kipling poems, one of which
you allude to below. I've always treasured that gesture. They were: "IF"
and "The Explorer". In doing a Google search for your mother's
book, I was surprised to learn that that title is claimed by Louisa E. Rhine!??
Is Louisa your mother and therefore JB your dad?!! Perhaps this could yet be
the "GREAT DAY", JB referred to?

If
you have opened the second blog link re the 'Carmel Beach Challenge' that I
sent earlier, you will know that our project did not mature. There were at
least two reasons for this. The most important was a "Mormon
complication" [see attached 2nd poem Night + commentary for my
oldest son]. The other was an impasse in JB's and my correspondence. He systematically
sent me all his books so that I could be up to date on his background and
latest thinking. I was willing to get this under my belt, but with misgivings.
The most critical was his refusal to answer, let alone acknowledge, my specific
question about the Zener Card approach to studying psy. JB insisted that I
experiment with my young family (wife and 5 children) using the Zener Cards.
But, I was reluctant to do this when I learned that this technique seemed
lethal to above-chance performance. I asked several times if there was any
evidence of talented persons recovering their statistically above-chance
performance once they lost it. If there was no such evidence, I was unwilling
to risk involving my family. One of my colleagues later explained that I'd focused
on the Achilles Heel of that technique and Rhine
could not risk losing my cooperation by answering it truthfully. I was never to
learn the truth of this assertion.

My
last contact with JB was in spring 1978, while working on a solicited USAF
proposal with the Eyring Research Institute in Provo, Utah.
I was asked to re-contact JB to refresh his memory of my original idea and to
invite him on board the project. He didn't remember my name, but did ask
"Are you the singer?"

Two
last items before closing this message. It may not mean anything to you out of
the larger context, but here is one more blog link that belongs between the two
links sent earlier: http://orthodoxodyssey.blogspot.com/2009/01/23-dec-64-dream-from-todays-perspective.html.
On the subject of dreams, I had
only begun remembering and recording my dreams just two or so weeks before
meeting JB in late November 1964. This was the result of reading Hugh Lynn
Cayce's newly published "Venture Inward", which contained
suggestions for recalling and processing dreams…. This was something JB and I
never discussed.

The
last item was a military experience I was not at liberty to explicitly mention
to JB. This was my clandestine experience in Berlin less than a decade earlier. You may
be interested my Amazon review of the print documentary by British historian
David Stafford called Spies Beneath Berlin.
This review soon flushed out others who contacted me personally. Instead of a
second addition, which Prof. Stafford asked me to contribute to (since I was
the first person he'd met that was actually at the Berlin site), it eventually morphed into a
2011 British TV film documentary by the same name. If this is of any interest
to you, I would be pleased to send you a post-production copy of the
complementary DVD.

Thank
you for allowing me to walk through your door after so many years! I earnestly
hope you will not regret it…

EugenePS.
It occurs to tell you that one of the reasons why JB was eager for my
participation at the FRNM was that I work with N. E. Khokhlov, who wanted to
study under JB. However, because of my subsequent correspondence with Khokhlov,
JB never allowed him to come to Duke or FRNM. (This is hinted at in the last
stanza of "Pilgrim", which was written after JB's telegram.) Khokhlov
eventually became a professor of psychology at a college in Southern
California before his death in 2007. There is more to this story
only if you are interested.

The "more" to the story will continue here on the Rhine blog. Stay tuned!*Brief bio ofEugeneN. Kovalenko, Ph.D.

Having been born in Los Angeles in 1933 and raised in the Phoenix, Arizona Mormon society and culture, Eugene's conscious life began in 1953 during the Korean War, when he joined the US Army to learn Russian, his Ukraine-born father's native tongue. For Eugene, that military experience began his life work in learning to become human: soldier, interpreter, singer, intelligence agent, student, engineer, scientist, seeker, poet, writer, inventor, manager, entrepreneur, teacher, husband, father, grandfather, great-grandfather, conversationalist, traveler, actor, visionary, wanderer, wonderer, believer, skeptic, philosopher, dreamer and dream worker.